Watercolor Critique: "Passing Time"

This painting has a very good composition, and the use of texture and lettering adds a lot of interest. There's a principle called "calibrating the lights" that I'd like to see applied here. There are several large light shapes in the painting that are all the same value. By darkening some of them slightly, you would create a stronger painting. If the light on the child's leg, for example, was darkened a little, the emphasis would shift to the silhouette of the figure's head against the white card in the background.

About the CriticDawn Whitelaw has studied painting with Scott Christensen, Cedric Egeli, Jim Pollard, and Everett Raymond Kinstler. In 2002, she received the Award of Excellence and the Best of Show award in an international art competition sponsored by the Portrait Society of America, and she has exhibited her portrait, landscape, and still life paintings in juried shows organized by the Cumberland Society of Painters, the American Academy of Women Artists, and the Phoenix Historical Museum.

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